Owner-operators and suppliers face many complex issues
relative to when and how to migrate obsolete control systems
and technology. ARC Advisory Group estimates that $65 billion
of obsolete technology is still presently in use today, and
much of it can be found in hydrocarbon processing plants. While many
older systems are still performing well beyond the original
life expectancy, this can introduce appreciable risk for
owner-operators.

Some issues relate to the lack of
availability from automation system components. However,
another major concern is the skill shortage needed to support
obsolete systems. Owner-operators must decide how to justify
and manage risk to their manufacturing business; while
suppliers must develop solutions that simplify the process, and
enable owner-operators to migrate successfully from the
obsolete systems to a better operating platform.

A half-day workshop at the recent
ARC World Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida, brought together
over 100 end users, suppliers, system integrators, and
engineering contractors to discuss issues, needs and wants
associated with migrating control systems. Suppliers and end
users came away from the workshop with very useful information
on planning out migration strategies.

Justifying control-system migrations

Justifying a control-system
migration may be one of the biggest challenges owner-operators
will face. While plant engineers are most efficient on
determining equipment reliability and predicting end of
life, this task is more difficult with control systems. It is
challenging to convince management of the need and urgency to
replace or to migrate to new control-system technology.

In particular, one problem is that
assets such as pumps, pipes, conveyer systems and other
mechanical devices are designed to be repaired or replaced as
components. In contrast, automation assets, in many cases, have
to be replaced in their entirety.

Key practices in justifying migrations

The ARC workshop highlighted common
practices used to justify migrations. Some reflect internal
practices that might be executed during a migration project. Others represent open
season for many technology suppliers, engineering
contractors and system integrators, and include:

 Developing a financial
assessment for the cost NOT the migration
 Improving the rigor of control-systems reliability data to include actual
failure events
 Developing a technology maturity model across
industry. Some facilities are late adopters, while
others are current with technology
 Benchmarking against other companies that are
running obsolete systems
 Driving value by creating long-term contracts and
user-supplier relationships. Remember: Supplier evaluations are
70% technical and 30% commercial.
 Practicing standardization within the organization;
it can help lower total cost of ownership significantly. Do a
solid market assessment before beginning your migration.

Migration approach selection

The workshop made it very clear
that migration approaches vary not just from
industry-to-industry, but from company-to-company. Operating
companies must decide whether to do migrations while the plant
is operating (via hot cutovers) or while the plant is offline
(using a phased or vertical migration). According to some
workshop participants, while its important to be aware of
these general options, they dont necessarily reduce
migration complexity.

In general, owner-operators of
refineries and petrochemical plants (which
never sleep) prefer to use the hot cut over
approach, since turnarounds are done at long (typically
five-year) intervals. Conversely, most chemical and polymer
plants have more frequent turnarounds and other plant outages,
making it easier to coordinate and manage an offline
cutover.

One leading integrated
refiner/petrochemical/specialty-chemical company performs
approximately 85% of its migrations using the hot cutover
approach and 15% using the offline cutover approach. A leading
global SI found that hot cut-overs are more cost-effective.
Some users indicated that, regardless of planning, hurricanes
and other Acts of God can force unplanned migrations.

Supplier selection considerations

While the migration strategy is a
key factor in vendor selection, workshop participants agreed
that most migrations are done on a per-site basis. One global
chemical company is now minimizing the number of vendors and is
standardizing to lower total cost of ownership. Another major
integrated energy company looks to the automation supplier to
come back and manage the hardware inventory and to also help
the company decide when system components should be
replaced.

Many end users also believed that
it was important to manage a technology roadmap with suppliers
on an ongoing basis. Having all plant sites near obsolescence
at the same time would be extremely detrimental to
operations.

Supplier evaluation techniques that
work well in the early stages of a migration project included a weighted
scorecard against all criteria using KT or Six-Sigma
approaches. Workshop participants noted that a wide range of
definition and weighting for each criterion were used based on
differences and priorities by the organizations. Developing a
functional specification upfront proved to be invaluable for
any project.

Develop appropriate risk-management strategies

Owner-operators and control-system
end users must develop risk-management strategies for
automation technologies that align with their operational
philosophy, corporate directives and risk-management
guidelines. This will ensure that investment decisions for
plant automation are made at the highest level within the
organization and that the project team will have appropriate
corporate-level support.

Suppliers and end users must also jointly develop long-term
strategies. This will ensure that obsolete equipment is
sustained until a migration project can be planned. End users,
suppliers and any third-party engineering and procurement
contractor or system integrator firms must be involved in
migration projects. Successful migration projects need the proper mix of
resources and involve management experts at an early stage.
Ultimately, the owner-operator must balance the risks of
failure and lost opportunities against new capabilities and
standardization. HP

The author

Peter Reynolds has more
than 20 years of professional experience in process
control, advanced automation applications,
information technology, enterprise and
supply chain in the downstream oil refining and petroleum
product marketing industry. Prior to joining ARC in
2011, Mr. Reynolds served as the strategic planning
manager for automation and IT at Irving Oil in Saint
John, New Brunswick, Canada. Irving Oil operates
Canadas largest refinery.

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